Hand Hygiene Literature Review 2022

Running head: HAND HYGIENE - CASP
Hand Hygiene - CASP
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author’s name

HAND HYGIENE - CASP1
Introduction
Health Associated Infection (HAIs) is those diseases which a patient receives during
his/her stay in the hospital for receiving treatment for his medical condition. According to the
literature, HAIs are preventable (Allegranzi et al., 2011). Modern-day healthcare system utilizes
different healthcare methods and devices to treat the patient and recover him/her from their
medical condition (Allegranzi et al., 2011). Though, the main path for the transmission of the
HAIs is through the improper way of using the healthcare devices and inappropriately delivering
treatment. The main reason for the death and injury to the patient in different countries is HAI,
and it leads to a significant rise in the health care costs annually. Hand-mediated transmission is
another leading reason for the transfer of HAI in hospitals (Allegranzi et al., 2011). Though
different literature has proved that hand hygiene is a significant way of reducing the rate of HAI.
Effective hand hygiene intervention is a crucial way of preventing the hospital staff from getting
pathogens that may cause serious infections (Sickbert et al., 2016).
Various research articles have proved that hand hygiene is a vital tool in stopping the
transmission of healthcare-associated infections among patients. Many experiments have shown
that hand-washing effectively eradicates the transfer of (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus
aureus) MRSA that happens inevitably in the hands of healthcare professionals in ICU. The
improvement in hand-washing showed a reduction in MRSA levels. Thus, this article will help in
defining what HAI and Hand-hygiene are, develop a PICO question and based on that will
conduct a literature review. By choosing one article, a critical analysis will be done using the
CASP tool.

HAND HYGIENE - CASP2
PICO
 P - Health care-associated infections (HAI)
 I – Hand Washing
 C - No hand washing, or other solutions, alcohol based hand rub
 O – Decrease in the rate of HAI
Is hand hygiene a successful way to decrease the incidence of hospital-related infections by
healthcare workers?
Search Strategy
To gather information regarding the effectiveness of hand hygiene in the reduction of
hospital-associated infections, a systematic review has been conducted. A systemic review is
described as an effective way of assessing the answer to a research topic by collecting evidence
from peer-reviewed evidence that fits the pre-specified requirement of inclusion and exclusion.
All peer-reviewed information shown in this article is collected from different academic sources
as NCBI, Google Scholar, Cinahl, PubMed, and Medline. There are specific keywords that
helped in the finding of the relevant articles such as Healthcare-associated infections (HAI) and
Hand Washing. Articles chosen are –
1. Gould, D. J., Moralejo, D., Drey, N., Chudleigh, J. H., & Taljaard, M. (2017). Interventions
to improve hand hygiene compliance in patient care. Cochrane database of systematic
reviews, (9).
2. Haque, A., Guo, M., Alahi, A., Yeung, S., Luo, Z., Rege, A., ... & Platchek, T. (2017).
Towards vision-based smart hospitals: A system for tracking and monitoring hand hygiene
compliance. arXiv preprint arXiv:1708.00163.

HAND HYGIENE - CASP3
3. Jones, D., Martello, M., Biron, A., & Lavoie‐Tremblay, M. (2017). A systematic review on
the effectiveness of interventions to improve hand hygiene compliance of nurses in the
hospital setting. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 49(2), 143-152.
4. Levchenko, O. I., Pong, S. M., & Fernie, G. R. (2017). U.S. Patent No. 9,836,950.
Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
5. Sickbert-Bennett, E. E., DiBiase, L. M., Willis, T. M. S., Wolak, E. S., Weber, D. J., &
Rutala, W. A. (2016). Reduction of healthcare-associated infections by exceeding high
compliance with hand hygiene practices. Emerging infectious diseases, 22(9), 1628.
Rationale for selecting hand hygiene
The impact of HAI can be seen on 100 million people worldwide annually. Such
infections lead to more critical a disease, leading to long-duration stays in the hospitals, prompt
long-term disabilities, increasing healthcare costs, the financial impact on the family members
causing a financial burden on the healthcare system and eventually lead to the death of the
patient. Especially in the ICUs, the usage of different healthcare instruments such as the central
venous catheter or urinary catheter is one of the significant risk characteristics for getting HCAI.
The infections occurring due to the healthcare instruments have a high economic impact, for
instance, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) causes catheter-related
bloodstream infection may lead to a cost similar to or may exceed US$ 38000 per episode. The
healthcare-associated pathogens spread through direct and indirect contact, droplets, air and a
typical mode of transport.
The following articles were chosen because the articles discuss different interventions
which can help in enhancing the hand hygiene compliance in various healthcare settings (Gould,
Moralejo, Drey, Chudleigh & Taljaard, 2017). Another article by Haque et al. (2017) discussed a